Fluther: Will digital cameras ever get good enough to photograph without a ...

Will digital cameras ever get good enough to photograph without a telescope?

Asked by talljasperman (21916

) December 11th, 2009
10 responses
“Great Question” (0

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I want to buy a really good digital camrea… I would like to haveone that has a lens as good as a telescope? whats the best on the market and how much better will they get i the next 10 years? Could someone photograph Pluto without a telescope?

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Topic: astronomy

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Answers

Probably not for quite a while :3

pouncey (702

)“Great Answer” (1

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Pluto, no. That is NASA’s business.

jeffgoldblumsprivatefacilities (20019

)“Great Answer” (1

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The problem is not the “quality of the camera”, it’s simple physics.

To photograph pluto, you need something that looks like this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tbenedict/2511843139/

(note the chair, bottom right)

grumpyfish (6657

)“Great Answer” (2

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If I wanted to ever photograph anything in our solar system, it would be really tight close-ups of the rings of Saturn. Pluto is okay I suppose, but probably pretty boring subject matter.

SirGoofy (3085

)“Great Answer” (1

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Size matters.

SeventhSense (18914

)“Great Answer” (1

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@grumpyfish is right. Its not a matter of digital technology, it is a matter of diverging light beams coherently, and eliminating light from all other sources. For that, you need a particular distance through which the light must travel, particular strength lenses that are ground in an extremely accurate fashion etc.

Note that you can get a 10MP camera for $200, but a good quality 10MP camera can cost up to $5,000 because of the cost of the lenses and the manipulation of the data that is detected.

FireMadeFlesh (16593

)“Great Answer” (2

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@FireMadeFlesh Precisely! And you could strap that $5k 10MP camera to the CHFT pictured above and get some awesome photos of the universe.

grumpyfish (6657

)“Great Answer” (1

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No, but a student from my high school (during his time there) once detected a planets with a low-level digital camera and some modified equipment (he still needed a tripod…)

Beta_Orionis (3410

)“Great Answer” (1

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@grumpyfish What wouldn’t I do for the keys to that thing….... I might never leave.

FireMadeFlesh (16593

)“Great Answer” (1

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@all thank-you for answering

talljasperman (21916

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